Well, as you know a hashtag is a “symbol” (or code) that allows web search engines to find and categorize messages and keywords. In Instagram hashtags are for categorizing pictures.

For instance, if you type #baby on one of your pictures, any user anywhere in the world looking for “baby” will easily find your picture and others user’s pictures using the same word.

Basically, it makes you more searchable which results in potentially increasing your Instagram following.

As you can see by the picture below, I tagged the photo #CityCreek

My intent is for others searching for images of City Creek to find a picture that I felt proud of, and was a good representation of the location.

I did not tag the image with other descriptive words like #blackandwhite, #nightime, #shopping, etc.

Why?

Um, ‘cuase I am lazy and I want Instagram to be more of a creative outlet for me and not worry so much about who’s watching.

I guess it comes down to choosing what your goal is. If you are looking to increase your following and social awareness.. .tag on.

If you are interested in tagging your images more, here are some topics that can help inspire you:

-Who or what is the picture of?

-Where did you take the photo?

-What time of year or day was it taken?

-What season or weather is represented in the image?

-What app did you use to process your image?

-What event are you attending?

And lastly, you can always tag your images with your Instagram name so that your images are easily searchable by others. For example, I could tag all the images from my own personal website #natalme so that others could easily find them. But don’t search for that because I totally don’t do that. 🙂

Here’s another example of a great way to tag a photo. I recently went to Les Schwab to get air put in my tires. I was so impressed with them doing it in under five minutes that I snapped a photo and tagged it #lesschwab as a way of saying thanks. (I would have included @lesschwab if they had an Instagram account.)

Get it? Good.

Now that you get the fundamentals of tagging, let’s talk about another form of hashtagging that I used to think was absolutely ridiculous.

I like to call it extreme tagging.

For example: #yourhashtagissolongnoonecanreadit (Your hash tag is so long no one can read it.)

Or…

#yourtopicissorandomnooneelsewilltagit (Your topic is so random no one else will tag it.)

I decided to give extreme tagging a go with the photo below.

There are absolutely no other tags (at this point) called “Stupid Vaulted Ceiling”.

But it totally works with the photos, and surprisingly some of my followers found it humurous.

What??? I can entertain my followers through tagging?

Yeah, I am sold.

So now I am now taking full advantage of the insanely long and random tags that bugged me so badly before.

And humor aside, I have realized that sometimes I can only express my thoughts through the tag I place on my photo.

So what about you?

Do super long hashtags make you crazy?

Would you stop following a friend just because he or she #tags #every #single #word #they #type?

Still waiting to give Instagram a try?

Let us know what your pet peeves are, or share with us your favorite hashtags!

And don’t forget to find Sarah and I on Instagram by searching for #Tech4Moms and #Natalme!